[MUD-Dev] Life

[Adam Wiggins]

[JK:]
> I am going to suggest the following terms, we use them at work to be clear:
> 
> PvP: Player versus Player play. A consensual thing in which the social
> contract is you WILL try to kil leach other out.

Okay - these sorts of games are in the vast minority.  At least, I don't
play too many of them.  Tron was fun.  I played a bit of netDoom a
few years back.  Ummm...Street Fighter and its derivative games in the
arcade are also a fun little adrenaline rush.  But I guess I don't
see what all this really has to do with muds, which don't focus on PvP.

> Pkilling: A nasty, sadistic, bullying form of play all too popular in a
> minority grou pwher the goal is to annoy, abuse amnd thus feel power over
> other players on the same mental/emotionmal level of a pack leader tearing
> into the younger males in teh group.  This is called "jumping" in some
> systems.

Ohhhhh...now that is a tad clearer.  I consider PK to be exactly what
is says - killing another player.  I didn't consider reading anything
into the term about motives, desires, etc...just that you *can* kill other
players, not that you necessarily want to or take great pleasure in it.
How about SPK - Sadistic Player Killing?

> Now, given thsoe terms, Pkilling in RP settings is what we are tlakitgn
> about and sayign is a problem.  HOWEVER PvP envrionemnts tend to attract
> mroe Pkillers because the defined game is closer to their own and easier to
> hide behind. Simialrly it becomes often difficult for an admin in an open,
> unstructured world to be able to tell the difference since Pkillers will
> lie and clainm they are PvPing while PvPers who lose will often lie and
> claim to be victims of PKilling.

Hmmm, well, whatever.  As I said, I don't play a lot of PvP stuff, but
in a game where the purpose is only to hunt down the other players and
somehow eliminate them (hell, "Tag" is a PvP game), I have trouble
imagining how a particularly sadistic player could do much worse than
yelling nasty insults.  After all, if the *purpose* of the game is to
hunt down other players, someone who wants to do this is hardly at odds
with the game. :)

> Pkilling is EXTREMELY destructive in an environemnt that is trying to
> foster roleplay because it makes peopel upset and drrives them away.  Thsoe
> whoi stay are forced to deal with the little kiddies ratehr then do what
> theyc came there for (which is part of the infantile draw of Pkilling, an
> attempt to get attention.).  Noone who comes to your system to relax wants
> to put up with this juvenile crap.

Yes, I agree with this, if we're talking about SPK.  But again, it's outside
the context of the game, just like breaking chess pieces.  I put SPK in
the same category as calling someone nasty names, or spreading vicious
rumors about someone, or whatever.  There will always be folks around who
are more interested in making a nussiance of themselves than actually
playing the game and enjoying themselves.  I just don't see what, exactly,
that has to do with the game.

> PvP is problematic as a focus IMO because it puts the emphasis on power as
> you will be called on to use it.  Pretty quickly EVERYONE has to become a
> pwoer gamer or be the victims of the pwoergamers.  Roleplayers find this

Well, sure.  A PvP game is either twitch based (Doom or Street Fighter),
or strategic or tactical based (chess, wargames, or powermuds), or
physical prowess (any kind of sport you can name).  In all these cases
the 'goal' is to best your opponent, whether that be by taking his king,
getting below par, or blowing her away with your BFG 9000.

> Thus, my opinons are as follows:
> (1) Pkilling just shouldn't be allowed.

Here's where the distinction between 'my' PK and 'your' PK (or, my 'SPK')
comes in.  How do you disallow something based on motivation?  As far
as I know there is no technology to determine if someone is attacking
another player as a part of playing their character or just because they
are feeling mean.  Most pure RP games get around this with some sort
of human overseer - the admin on a MUSH, or the DM in a live action game.

> (2) PvP while potentailly a fine game MUST be limited to games where that
> is the point and kept limited in a Roleplay envrionment.

PvP in itself is a pretty limited concept.  Most PvP games involve very
simple rules - look at tennis, or chess, or poker - and rely upon the
inginuity of the players themselves to give the game its complexity.
This is fine, I just think it's not really a good route for muds, which
work better with different styles of gameplay (IMO, anyhow).

> Okay, NOW argue with me now that you knwo my real position :)

*nod*...it is clearer.  My main problem with your position is just that
you are mixing in-game elements with out-of-game elements.  A DM can sit
there and say 'You attacked so-and-so for no good reason.  Are you going
to play the game, or not?'  A computer is not quite so smart, unfortunately.
Thus, as the designers and programmers, we must decide where to draw our lines.
I prefer to make things less restricted, both because I find it more fun and..
well, less restricting.  If players being able to get hurt bothers you,
you can certainly make this not possible in the game.  This just takes away
a lot of the flexibility of the game, IMO, and more importantly - someone
who is out to personally hurt another person will be able to do it no matter
WHAT kind of game it is.  I've played plenty of no-PK muds where assholes
would find all sorts of little tricks to annoy you or even get your character
killed - and in the meantime, there is little or nothing you can do about
it except whine to the admin, something I don't like either as a player or
as a member of the admin.